RI vows to implement fully the CWC

RI vows to implement fully the CWC

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesia, the third largest democracy in the world, is committed
to fully implementing the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), said
a senior official at the ministry of foreign affairs.

"Indonesia, which is in the process of full democratization,
will be in a better position to fully implement the Chemical
Weapons Convention," Makmur Widodo, director general for
multilateral political, social and security affairs at the
ministry of foreign affairs, said on Tuesday while opening a
seminar on the "Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention
(CWC)" in Jakarta.

Makmur said Indonesia, which signed the CWC on Jan. 13, 1993
and ratified it on Sept. 30, 1998 and enacted it into the Law No.
6/1998, is committed to fully implementing the CWC.

"As a party to the CWC, Indonesia is legally bound to fully
implement the provisos of the convention. Indeed, Indonesia is
now in the process of doing just that," Makmur
said.

The CWC, which came into force on April 29, 1997, is an
international treaty that bans the use of chemical weapons and
aims to eliminate chemical weapons, everywhere in the world,
forever.

Even after more than five years since the ratification of the
CWC, Indonesia is still trying to implement it fully.

The problems, according to Makmur, are mainly two: the
establishment of a permanent national authority and passing of 'a
unified robust national legislation' to cover and govern all
aspects of the use of chemical substances.

Indonesia currently has a temporary national authority under
the coordination of the directorate for international peace and
disarmament at the foreign ministry.

Under the CWC, the member countries must make it part of its
national legislation before 2005.

Hassan Kleib, a foreign ministry official, shared Makmur's
view at the seminar -- attended by diplomats, international
experts and people representing non-governmental organizations as
well as the private sector -- that the national legislation was
needed to tighten the importation of chemical substances so as to
enable the authority to control the influx of such substances.

"As a member party of CWC, we have to submit our annual report
of the imports and exports of the chemical substances to the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)," he
said.

The Hague-based OPCW is an independent international
organization, which was established in 1997 by the countries that
have joined the CWC to make sure that the Convention works
effectively and achieves its purpose.

The two-day seminar -- which was organized by the Indonesian
foreign ministry in collaboration with the Technical Secretariat
of the OPCW -- aimed at preparing the ground work for the
establishment of Indonesian Permanent National Authority and
speeding up the national legislation on the usage of chemical
substances.